Ghana to chair CILT AFRICA Confab

Accra, Feb. 13, GNA - Ghana will for the first time chair the Africa forum Meeting and Conference of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) International in Johannesburg, South Africa. A statement from the CILT secretariat in Accra made available to the Ghana News Agency on Wednesday said eleven Africa countries, comprising Ghana, South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, Egypt, Malawi, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Mauritius and the Seychelles Island, would attend the four-day event scheduled for February 21-24, 2008.

Ghana took up the mantle of leadership in May 2007 during the International Council Meeting and Conference of the Institute held in Accra, the first of its kind on the continent.

Mr. Teete Owusu-Nortey, the Honorary Secretary of the Ghana section of CILT was elected into the office of International Vice President responsible for Africa, thus catapulting Ghana as the Head of the Professional organization on the continent.

The statement said the Africa Forum Meeting was a strategic development forum made up of the cream of Africa's Logistics and Transport experts mainly within the Institute's fraternity.

Representation from the other member countries across the globe especially the United Kingdom, which houses the head office are always present at Africa's meeting.

Individual technocrats and policy experts in the industry also bring their ideas to bear in what seems to be the most formidable platform for the development of the sector on the continent

Ghana will this year champion the course for a sustainable Transport system in the region with her other member countries. This is at the core of the problems that beset trade and commerce in the region, hence the need for Ghana's section to lead discussions on the subject. In line with the ideals of the African Peer Review Mechanism, Ghana hopes to achieve this through participatory partnership between member states, the private sector and other civil society groups who are also clamoring for a sustainable transport system within Africa.

The Ghana section of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport has shown the way by partnering the '6th Intermodal Africa 2008 Ghana' Conference organised by the Transport Events Management Limited of Malaysia and hosted by the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority from February 28-29, 2008.

At the end of the four-day meeting in Johannesburg, Ghana hopes to achieve structural policy reforms that will put the continent on a pedestal for an effective transport and logistics system in line with the developments of the western hemisphere; and the vision 2020 target, the statement added.